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Monday, August 6, 2012

Making the Zen Pilgrimage

One of the abilities the monks got during the course of the beta was Zen Pilgrimage. As you can see using this ability sends you to the Peak of Serenity in Kun-Lai Summit. A very pleasant sanctuary and monk training headquarters. There's more to it than that though so come have a look...
Here in the Shrine of the Ox where you'll arrive you'll meet Master Hight the Grandmaster who will send you to training every 10 levels starting at level 20. Not only that but after you've done any of them you'll be able to do one at least daily for more xp and a buff called Enlightenment which will give you x amount of mastery.

Begin Your Training: Master Cheng - Level 20 - Reward: Staff
The first quest you'll get is to go see Master Cheng down in the Training Grounds. All you have to do is run down and talk to him and choose the option to challenge him. He will say something and then walk out into the middle of the training grounds where you /bow to him to begin the training. This is repeated for the rest of the quests as well but each lesson is built around a specific utility skill. For Master Cheng it's Roll. As you fight him he'll occasionally cast a large ae fire spell that takes away 10% HP per second! All you have to do is roll once, spin around, and resume combat with him until he is defeated. Reward is a Rare Agi or Int staff quite suitable for the level (or transmog!).

Continue Your Training: Master Woo - Level 30 - Reward: Belt
This is the second lesson along the way but this sturdy little Dwarf has a trick up her sleeve. As the fight continues her passive ability absorbs more and more damage, until even at level 90 I was doing about 50 damage a Jab! Although by that point, that's where you learn the lesson of Touch of Death because that will be the only way to finish this rock hard Dwarven lady. The reward here is a level appropriate belt, there are 3 kinds for this one for each monk spec.

Continue Your Training: Master Kistane - Level 40 - Reward: Belt (yes, again)
In your meetup with Master Kistane the Mistweaver she'll teach you that slowing down the enemy can be a necessary strategy. As you walk in for the fight you'll notice the Training Ground has Jade Serpent Statues strewn about. You see her intent is to use them during the fight. At a point during the fight you'll get an emote that she is attempting to heal so you must Disable her (perhaps even twice to get the root) and defeat her before she's able to heal or you will have to do it again. While the reward is again a belt it will still obviously be better than the last and as a bonus it has a different appearance than the first so you can keep a collection of these belts to match various sets.

Continue Your Training: Master Yoon - Level 50 - Reward: Headband
Master Yoon, the wily little gnome monk says that it's better to prevent actions of your enemies than to allow them to do as they wish. So as you fight this bald, fist dagger wielding gnome he will attempt to cast a heal upon himself which you will counter with a swift Spear Hand Strike to the Adam's apple, shutting him up nice and good. Well, for a few seconds. If you nail him in time you should only have to use it once to defeat the pint sized Master (hah, Brewmaster joke, ya get it?) Horrible pun aside, the reward here is a headband. Though you probably won't be using it if you're like me and will instead be using heirlooms, but you can still keep it for transmog of course!

Continue Your Training: Master Cheng - Level 60 - Reward: Belt (the Third)
Although the exact same name as the first master, this one is a lithe little High Elf. Like Master Yoon she's all about teaching you how to prevent enemy action, but in a different way. Throughout the fight Ms. Master Cheng will go into a Spinning Crane Kick but this time it's a protected spell cast, not interrupt-able. You could probably just move out of it and keep waiting for it to be over, but the lesson of this training is Paralysis and using it to prevent all actions from the target. So when she starts her kicking flurry just hit her with it locking her down like Bakudō #61. Rikujōkōrō. Simple as that. Once again we have a Belt as a reward in yet another color scheme (RED!) for practical use and/or transmog.

Continue Your Training: Master Tsang - Level 70 - Reward: Belt (the last one I swear!)
Master Tsang's experience is a little different in that you have to deal with more than just him. As you approach the fighting area you'll notice balance poles in a circle. This is what the test is all about. You'll begin the fight with Master Tsang but he'll Zen Fly off unattackable until you take care of his students up on the balance poles. You can't get in range of them however. The solution however is to knock them off with a nice jolt of Crackling Jade Lightning. They'll fall off, you finish 'em off, and then repeat like you're a thunderstriking Pikachu until they're all gone. Master Tsang will then come down and it's just a simple fight to end this training for your reward of the last belt you'll get from these quests.

Continue Your Training: Master Hsu - Level 80 - Reward: Polearm
Almost done, so what's the lesson here? No Ed, it's not to follow strangers. It's Grapple Weapon! Master Hsu's training is a very simple fight where he'll begin a large swing attack which you'll want to prevent by taking that polearm away from the beastly Tauren. Much like another famous Tauren however he'll attempt to pull another set of weapons. By this time though I defeated him, but he did say they were poison coated swords. I didn't even get to see them. But the reward here is a very nice looking Polearm. The one he's using in fact. An Int polearm is a very INTeresting thing and I'm glad they included it as a reward in these Monk quests.

Lastly but finally...Complete Your Training: The Final Test - Level 90 - Reward: Staff
This one final test of your training leads you to a fight with Master Hight himself. There's nothing this Grand Master of the Peak of Serenity can't do and that's the point of his training. Master Hight will test you in all the previous skills you used on all the other Masters. Well, more like he'll test 2 of them. I'm not sure if it's at random or anything but what he did for me was jump on top of a balance pole to be knocked off with Jade lightning. Then he went for the spinning crane kick to be countered with Paralysis. If anyone else has done this and can let me know that'd be great! Anyway the reward for defeating him is a very nice Rare ilvl 450 staff, a choice of one for each spec. Also 2 of them are a different coloration than the reward staff from the first quest, allowing you to transmog these staves differently as well.

Terrace of the Tiger on the left and the Serpent Springs to the right.

So that's the quest chain but there's also a few other things here at Peak of Serenity. Over at the Terrace of the Tiger out to the east is Master Tan <Fist Weapon Vendor> who has a nice selection of different level Handwraps (no graphic) fist weapons, as well as a set of ilvl 282 (so not very good) but awesome looking Tiger Lord's Claws.

Right next to the east stairs to the Shrine of the Ox there's Master Cannon <Tanner>. Master Cannon can teach you Leatherworking and Skinning, and will also sell you all the armor rewards from the quests so you can pick up say, both headbands for both your specs. In the same location is also Master Marshall <Botanist> who will teach both Herbalism and Inscription. Then Master Hwang <Staff Vendor> who will sell you various level staves and polearms. All the staves (except the level 10 ones) are Int, and there are ilvl 282 polearms for all 3 specs.

Below the bridge that leads to the Terrace of the Tiger you should see a set of hot springs in front of serpent statue where you'll find Masters Lo and Bier who can teach Fishing and First Aid respectively.

There's also a Cave of the Crane but there are no vendors here, just an unnecessary monk trainer. However south of the Shrine of the Ox there's a lone Master Brandom who will teach Blacksmithing and Mining.

I love this place and I'll probably spend lots of downtime here just because. There's no rest area though, so I probably won't do that until level 90, but just the fact that they created this place just for us is great. It really is a nice gift to the monks. So until next time, see y'all at the Peak of Serenity!

15 comments:

I also found this place and did a write-up on the quests. :-) But as my monk is only 85, I haven't done the last one. I was surprised and disappointed reading that the reward wasn't a black belt though! Was kind of looking forward to completing my training that way. See you at the Peak of Serenity. :-)

Thank you so much for this guide!!! I have fought myself to death so many times before I found this guide. Now I finally know which skill is right for defending the trainers skills. You have earned yourself a big reward. If you find a monk named Mykadoh in real game, ask her to hand over that reward ;o)

I have a little annotation for Master Krisang. The point is to keep her away from her Statues long enough to use your Touch of Death. That will instantly get her to admit defeat. In order to do that though you will have to get her far enough away from her statues, which you can do. I pulled her all the way out around the corner onto a way out of the battle field. From there she had no chance to get back to her Statues. It took me a while to find this, because before I was always able to defeat her by fighting her from the middle of the field, but tonight I guess I was a tad to tired to stop her in time so I ran away and found that she would follow me that far away ;o)

By now I am of course playing the real game as Mykadoh on two servers (my Guilde transferred to a PVE Server and I started a new Monk rather than unrooting my Mains from the RP-Server of my choice) but I still find this Guide extremely helpful as a reminder for the skills needed for the daily Trainer that might come your way. You should post this somewhere where everybody in the world that is leveling a monk in real game can find it ;o)

Hey, I'm very glad and it means a lot. I know I haven't done anything since release but I'm trying to overcome a lot of self confidence and depression issues that have worked their way back into my mind. I haven't linked this to anywhere in a while but it was linked to from WoW Insider shortly after I posted.

being as i am a noob to this type game... i don't think i would have made it through the training without your help... before i found this, i was very frustrated...so, thanks... i just reached level 80 a matter of minutes ago n was able to defeat the "beastly Tauren" as you called the master LoL ... thanks again for your help :)